With Covid, many companies had to send their employees to the home office. They usually did so reluctantly, fearing that productivity would drop and that they would lose some of their control. At fino, we do things differently and, even before Covid, gave our employees the freedom to decide for themselves where they work from.
Remote work has been part of our company DNA from the very beginning. This has made it possible, for example, to recruit a first-class team of outstanding software developers and product owners. Because when it comes to employee selection, the place of residence no longer plays a role. Even the onboarding of new colleagues is done remotely. fino has an international team, which makes it possible to operate globally and in a highly innovative way. We use the latest technologies and primarily Go as our development language – one of the most successful languages developed in recent years.
Our leadership style is based on the understanding “Walk your Talk” – live what you say. Our understanding of leadership is based on trust, even in times of remote work. We have never had time clocks, command-and-control structures or rigid hierarchies. We regard micromanagement as a motivation killer. Across all functions, we see ourselves as finos and take a people-first approach with an appreciative attitude based on the motto: “As a fino, I always make time for my colleagues and help proactively, no matter what’s on my desk.” This makes all finos feel good, as evidenced by the employer ratings on kununu.
Nevertheless, Covid has also changed things for us. Before Corona, most colleagues regularly came to the office in Kassel, despite their freedom to work from wherever they wanted. For many, the switch to 100 percent remote work meant that they began to miss their colleagues, the shared Friday afternoon beer and the massages from fino’s own feelgood manager. But interdisciplinary collaboration didn’t suffer one bit – on the contrary! As finos, who have digital life programmed into them, we set up a virtual coffee room for personal exchanges, and even the messages in the Random channel on Slack always include cat content and dog content, advice on buying a house, shopping, or vacation greetings – an atmosphere of sharing in which work is fun and flows.
Many positive experiences
With tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Confluence, collaboration during home office hours also works perfectly. Since all employees are technology-savvy, they know how to use the respective applications optimally, which creates optimal working conditions. One example is communication. This is mostly done asynchronously via Slack. This means that each employee can take note of the messages intended for them when it suits them. This promotes highly concentrated work. If information is needed in real time, we arrange a meeting via Microsoft Teams, i.e. a synchronous form of communication in which we briefly discuss what is needed. Documentation helps us not to forget what has been recorded and, for example, to document decisions in the long term.
Despite remote work, we give our finos – and customers – the opportunity to meet in person if necessary. Even after the crisis, every knowledge worker is free to choose his or her own place of living and working, as it opens up countless opportunities to combine work and family life. According to the market and opinion research institute Gallup, this factor is essential for success. This is because 53 percent of employees say that a better work-life balance and personal well-being are very important to them when considering whether to take on a new job.
Would you also like to become part of our team and decide where you work from? Then take a look at our job offers!
We are looking forward to you.
Yours, Florian Christ
CEO
